Why the US nuked Japan

[Mizmoon]

In one of his last books (To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian) Stephen Ambrose wrote about the racial hatred that existed between the Japanese and the Americans. He claimed the main reason we lost so many men on Iwo Jima was because we hated the Japanese so freakin much that we tried to kill every last one that was hiding in the underground tunnels when we didn't really need to.

He said military logic dictated that they should have been left underground to come out when they were hungry and thirsty enough - we basically knew where they were and that they had no supplies. But we wanted every last damned one dead dead dead so the Marines went thorugh hole by hole with their flamethrowers. And it wasn't us being "bad white people", the Japanese felt exactly the same about us.

Ambrose wrote that it was different between us and Germany. The Germans were Christians, they were white, they sang the same Christmas carols (for example), they ate similar food. But the Japanese were alien, yellow-skinned, and had some strange religion we didn't understand. They were too different and we hated them for it.

I submit that the reason we nuked the Japanese was because we hated their guts with a passion. We didn't want to find another way. We just wanted them dead. Period.

I realize that they obvious next question is "yeah, but what about Dresden" but Ambrose didn't address that so I don't know how he would have responded.

[The Magistrate]

1. There Is Something To That, Ma'am

An excellent work on the subject is "War Without Mercy", an analysis of attitudes and propagandas on both side. The author's name escapes immediate reflection, and the book is elsewhere, but it is a favorite of mine. It should not be hard to track down.

[vogonjiltz]

3. Why yes, I too have read that book,

very interesting read.

[Mizmoon]

5. sounds interesting

will have to put it on my list ...

[Bucky]

10. Author John Dower (link provided)

Here's a review of War Without Mercy

http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/students/gaskill2/mercy.html

[Mizmoon]

14. This part is fascinating

"But an overriding question which weaves itself through the book, and Dower's ultimate point, is if this war was so demonizing, if both sides spent so much time painting ill pictures of "the domonic other" then how in the end did they produce a peace so intense that almost all of this was forgotten? How was it put aside? How shallow and superficial is war time racial hate and prejudice? It is an interesting question, and one that Dower attempts to uncover. Insightful, it serves as a nice starting point to analyzing the post-war development of Japanese-American relations--and makes a person wonder how superficial our current relationship could possibly be."

It reminds me of when I first taught my son about WWII. When I told him that we were mortal enemies with Japan, he furrowed his brow and said, "But they make the best video games!" It was simply unfathomable to him. It made me smile. Peace is a good thing.

[Bucky]

32. 3 reasons: a benevolent US occupation, demilitarization, & Japan's culture

The Japanese cultural value of conformity played a huge role in this. When the emperor said "we should all cooperate with the Americans" that had an enormous impact on cultural reactions. Since the US occupation was unitary--not shared with Russia or Britain--Japan never became a military pawn in the Cold War. We never needed Japan to remilitarize like we did with Germany. Sixty years later Japan is just now moving toward taking responsibility for its own defense.

Partly this lasted so long because the US occupation never attempted to impose economic control over Japan. The architect of that "benevoloen occupation" policy is... are you ready for this?... Herbert Hoover. Of course the policy implementation was Truman's call, but there was plenty of wisdom in the top echelons of our political leadership back then and plenty of credit to go around.

Japan's political culture was a form of fascism. In 1919 we had failed to install a similar benevolent demilitarization policy in Germany and Hitler was the product of that short sightedness. Truman and Hoover and Marshall and Byrnes and MacArthur were all of the viewpoint that whatever we did with Japan had to be geared around not creating an environment in which a Japanese Hitler could rise to power from the ashes of this war.

[Mizmoon]

33. I always thought it was MacArthur

who designed the occupation. The famous tale was him writing Japan's new constitution on a plain old legal notepad.

I suppose he was carrying out Hoover's and Truman's orders ..

edited to say excellent points, btw.

[Erika]

2. Same reason as to why we aren't objecting to all the Iraqi

innocents being killed. Racism. That is the theory provided to me by a Japanese/White friend who was a military brat and who also served in Vietnam.

[TomClash]

9. But by 1966 there was a growing antiwar movement

to leave Vietnam so I'm not sure racism played the same role there. I think the key to Vietnam is the key to history - follow the money.

[Schema Thing]

4. Much like Iraq, I doubt there is just one (lame) reason.

I submit that our future relationship with Russia had much to do with it.

You'd be amazed at the passion and eloquence with which many great military leaders of the time pleaded for us NOT to use the bombs, or not to use them on civilians.

I highly recommend you read their words.

[xray s]

6. Please

My father-in-law fought in WWII in Europe and he hated Germans for a long long time after that war.

If circumstances in 1945 had led to a turn around in the war in Hitler's favor I think we would have hit Germany with the bomb too.

Regardless of our common Christmas carols.

[Mizmoon]

7. true enough

but I think that Ambrose would suggest that it we would have been slower at the trigger with the Germans than we would with the Japanese.

[nosmokes]

13. no, we'd have never dropped the bomb on white folks.

never. that would have been untennable. but the yellow heathens were altogether different. dresden we could justify and rationalise as being necessary because of mannufacturing plants and such, and the bombimg that had been done to allied towns and cities but to drop a nuke on white folk? nope. was never seriously considered.

[Mizmoon]

15. I think we would have if we were desperate enough

if they were about to invade London or something ...

[xray s]

23. We never seriously considered nuking Russia in the Cold War?

they look pretty white to me.

If Truman had info that Hitler was going to get his hand on the bomb and use it, we would have hit first.

At least I sure hope so.

[Mizmoon]

27. Only twice, as far as I know

Once, right after WWII, a RAND physicist named Shipley? Shapley? Can't recall exactly, but he ran around Washington DC insisting that we nuke the USSR right away, while we still had a chance before they got the bomb. Obviously his idea was rejected - so there's an example of when we could have but didn't. Why didn't we? I assume because it was immoral but maybe partly because they were white.

The other was the Cuban missile crisis. I think the only reason we were thinking abotu nuking them was because we were pretty sure they were getting ready to nuke us first. That, I think, fits into what I posted to someone else - we would have nuked the Germans if we were desperate, and what you're asserting too.

Can you think of any other overt examples of our considering nuking them?

[Bucky]

31. Nixon believed that the Six-Day War was a second "Cuban Missile Crisis"

Besides the routine Israel vs Egypt show down, the two superpowers started to get dragged into the conflict because of Egypt's treaties with the Soviets and Israel's with the US. Nixon was at the helm for that one and he and Brezhnev were able to head off any escalation. Nixon in his memoirs says that that was one of the strongest tributes to Kennedy's installing the Hotline after the Cuban conflict.

Fortunately the wires didn't get crossed; othewise Brezhnev might have ended up calling Commissioner Gordon by mistake.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. Six-Day War-- 1967

Johnson was President at that time.

Perhaps you're thinking of the Yom Kippur War of 1973?

[pop goes the weasel]

17. remember

The Japanese had already put out peace feelers in summer 1945. The only reason that Truman used the atomic bombs on a foe he knew was beaten was that the USSR was scheduled to come into the Pacific war on the 8th, and he was willing to use Japanese civilians as pawns in the developing Cold War. Racism likely did play a part in that, along with vengeance. And then there was Truman's conviction that weapons were made to be used--he had this nice new toy, and, damn it, he was going to use it despite his aides advising against it.

[vogonjiltz]

35. It was put out by the Minister of Foreign Affairs,

this was a powerless Ministry. Also, there were conditions attached Truman wanted unconditional surrender. I still think we did the right thing. Remember Nanjing, Shanghai, The Phillipines. The Japanese systematically fucked thier neighbors over hoping to become an imperial power.



This wasn't Hiroshima.

[pop goes the weasel]

41. No doubt Japan was beyond brutal in the war

But obviously that didn't matter to the US government all that much or there would have been major trials on the order of the Nuremburg trials. Instead, our government helped cover up not only its own nastiness at the ground zeroes, but Japan's nastiness against other Asians.

If anything, the use of the atomic bomb shamed the US into overlooking most of Japan's crimes against civilians, and even against Allied POWs. Use of the atomic bomb put the US on the same moral level as Japan--Truman had made sure that the targets picked were as near to pristine as possible for the purpose of military science. Because hundreds of thousands of civilians would die immediately, because even more would suffer a life time of medical woes from this large-scale human subject experimentation, because even a second generation born to survivors would suffer, the US had made itself into its enemies, but on a more long lasting scale. The experimentation on human subjects didn't stop with the war, nor was it contained to some despised enemy, but continued on against unwitting American citizens, civilian and soldier. Nor did this experimentation stop with the Human Subjects of Experimentation laws passed in the seventies--just look at the profligate American use of DU to see what is going on still.

[DivinBreuvage]

36. Yes, but your father-in-law didn't call the shots

Plenty of big shots in the US government didn't particularly have a problem with Nazis, except insofar as the Nazis were messing things up for Anglo-American capitalism. In fact they much preferred Nazis to Soviets, a fact which became abundantly clear after the war, and which Albert Speer brilliantly exploited, perhaps saving his life at Nuremberg.

[Bucky]

8. Dresden was mostly Britain's doing. (informative link)

There is an excellent article in the Spring 05 edition of the Wilson Quarterly on the moral decay
that led the Brits and Americans to deciding to attack Dresden.

Sifting Dresden's Ashes



(on edit: mispelled the word "in" -- how pathetic is that?)

[Mizmoon]

30. Great link - thanks

very interesting

[Name removed]

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[Deja Q]

11. Yeah, they bombed Pearl Harbor.

There may have been 5 times as many just reasons TO use the bomb on them, and that's been said elsewhere, but retribution is part of it - like it or not.

[Erika]

12. They bombed a military base

We A bombed two population centers. There is a difference.

[Massacure]

22. Hiroshima was a military base. It housed the HQ of the Second General Army

Nagasaki was an industrial center that built ships, equipment, and munitions. The A-bomb missed it's intended target though.

The military knew the bombs would cause a lot of damage on a military scale, but they underestimated the civilian toll, especially radiation.

[Erika]

26. Yeah. 66,000 structures were demolished

And yes, none were warned of radiation dangers.

[Mizmoon]

28. I read that we thought the Japanese were lying at first

about the radiation damage, but I can't remember where I read it.

[Erika]

34. The U.S. tried to minimize the bombs affects in propaganda

Again, I watched new military releases of the actual damage done to the civilian population. It was horrific beyond belief. One scene showed dead bodies floating en masse down the river. They had sought relief from the heat and pain. It was twice as bad as was the river scene in the War of the Worlds movie, and this was the real thing.

[bpilgrim]

29. Hiroshima was a CITY, hello...

and Nagasaki, also a CITY, was the OLDEST christan town in all of japan going back centuries.

In one of history's terrible ironies, the second atomic
bomb exploded above the Nagasaki cathedral, decimating the largest community of Christians in Japan and destroying the largest church.

source...
http://www.baobab.or.jp/~stranger/mypage/endo.htm

peace

[Massacure]

37. I don't care what you say, it doesn't change history.

Hiroshima was a military town that headquartered the Second General Army. Sure there were plenty of people around it, but it doesn't change the fact that the city was of military significance.

I noticed some people saying that at least Pearl Harbor was a military base. But had the Japanese dropped an atomic bomb on Pearl Harbor, it would have killed a lot of people in the surrounding city areas as well.

[bpilgrim]

18. and that has to be the lamest ultra-nationalist excuse, EVER...

yet, that lame, war-time PROPAGANDA, lingers on, unfortunately :shrug:



peace

[Name removed]

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[HereSince1628]

16. The Bush administration with its push toward useable nukes

has apparently learned none of the lessons in the intervening 60 friggin year. THAT is a problem.

While we often ignore our incomplete grasp of it, we should recognize that the most outstanding characteristic of history is that we can't change it.

Rather than argue about the use of atomics on Japan 40 years ago, I'd like to see us abstract the lessons of those terrible events and use that understanding to express more concern about why the use of atomics on nations that have people that look like people who sponsor or otherwise harbor terrorism is wrong.

[Mizmoon]

20. I think the problem is we can't agree on the lesson

hence the debate.

[enid602]

19. a-bomb

I saw a documentary a couple of nights ago on PBS which dealt with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were interviewing surviving US military that were involved with the bombings. One gentleman was on the aircraft that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Apparently, it was a very cloudy day, and they could not see their target. Their orders specified that they visually locate target, but they were eventually allowed to use their radar for targeting purposes. The airman said the decision was made because they had put so much money and time into the project, and everyone was anxious to see how it would turn out. Made it sound like it was being done for the folks back home.

[alarimer]

24. I think that may have been part of it

Also to show the rest of the world what we could do. I read somewhere (but I am not sure where nor do I know if it is true) that there was a POW camp that was in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the time of the bombings.

[Massacure]

25. You sure it was Hiroshima?

I'm pretty sure you talking about the second bomb, the one that was dropped on Nagasaki. It was supposed to be dropped on Kokura, but there was too many clouds so they moved to Nagasaki. Nagasaki was covered in clouds though too, but they were low on fuel and wouldn't make it back carrying the very heavy bomb. So when they found a break in the clouds they took it, as I understand it. I never heard of radar, but it might be that they used it.

[hijinx87]

39. Hiroshima targeted visually.

Nagasaki was a radar drop due to cloudy conditions over the target, and it fell in a valley, which tended to limit the damage and casualties that were caused by the second bomb.

[Swede]

21. Well,they started it.

nt

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[Fescue4u]

40. Because they hadnt surrendered yet

A Japanese surrendar would have been an easy way to avoid the unpleasantry of the Hiroshima Demonstration.

Yet even after the terrifying effects are an atomic bomb were demonstrated over Hiroshima, Japan foolishly tried to hold out.

So more Japanese citizens were killed due to the Japans foolish pride.

All in all, Japan proably shouldnt have attacked Pearl Harbor.

<g>

[Name removed]

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[Fescue4u]

46. ' Yet we prefer to blame Japan.'

Yes, we do.

Funny how we blame Japan for Pearl Harbor. I suppose its because they planned and executed it.

[Mountainman]

47. Yes we hated the Japanese because they attacked us and they were different

But I don't find it hard to accept that we were going to invade Japan like we invaded Europe and expected millions to be killed. So if we had a weapon that would kill far less yet end the war sooner there was the will to use it.

If you don't except that idea you must believe there was a way to end the war without an invasion of Japan. Possibly a seige and blockade while millions died of starvation and illness.

Or you think Japan was going to surrender any day and we just didn't want to end the war that way.